Rousseau - Plan for Perpetual Peace, On the Government of Poland, and Other Writings on History and Politics

THE PLAN FOR PERPETUAL PEACE, ON THE GOVERNMENT OF POLAND,

AND OTHER WRITINGS ON HISTORY AND POLITICS

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

THE PLAN FOR PERPETUAL PEACE, ON THE GOVERNMENT OF POLAND,

AND OTHER WRITINGS ON HISTORY AND POLITICS

THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROUSSEAU

Vol. 11

TRANSLATED BY

CHRISTOPHER KELLY AND JUDITH BUSH

EDITED BY

CHRISTOPHER KELLY

ROGER D. MASTERS AND CHRISTOPHER KELLY

SERIES EDITORS

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE PRESS

Hanover, New Hampshire

PUBLISHED BY UNIVERSITY PRESS OF NEW ENGLAND

HANOVER AND LONDON

Dartmouth College Press

Published by University Press of New England,

One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766

www.upne.com

2005 by the Trustees of Dartmouth College

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 17121778.

[Selections. English. 2005]

The plan for perpetual peace, On the government of Poland, and other writings on history and politics / Jean-Jacques Rousseau ; translated by Christopher Kelly and Judith Bush ; edited by Christopher Kelly.

p. cm. (The collected writings of Rousseau ; v. 11)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 9781584655145 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1584655143 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61168-283-0 (e-book)

1. Political scienceEarly works to 1800. 2. PeaceEarly works to 1800. 3. CivilizationEarly works to 1800. I. Kelly, Christopher, 1950 II. Title.

PQ2034.A3 1990

[JC179.R7]

320.94dc22 2005014159

Contents

Translated and edited by Christopher Kelly

Translated and edited by Christopher Kelly

Translated and edited by Christopher Kelly

Translated by Judith Bush and Christopher Kelly

Edited by Christopher Kelly

Translated and edited by Christopher Kelly

Translated and edited by Christopher Kelly

Publishers Note to Ebook Readers

To accommodate the special requirements of flowing-text ebooks, this electronic edition differs slightly from this volumes print version.

In both versions, each selection from Rousseaus writings is keyed to the corresponding page numbers in the Pliade edition of Oeuvres compltes. In this ebook, this information appears directly below the selection heading. In the print book, it appears in the texts running heads.

In this ebook edition, two endnote number sequences appear. First, endnotes provided by the editors are indicated in both the print and ebook editions with superscript arabic numbers. They look like this.1 Second, in this ebook, Rousseaus own footnotes to the original text are indicated by superscript arabic numbers prefaced by the letter R. They look like this.R1 In the print edition, Rousseaus notes are styled as footnotes keyed to the text with symbol characters.

Preface

Although Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a significant figure in the Western tradition, there is no standard edition of his major writings available in English. Moreover, unlike those of other thinkers of comparable stature, many of Rousseaus important works have never been translated or have become unavailable. The present edition of the Collected Writings of Rousseau is intended to meet this need.

Our goal is to produce a series that can provide a standard reference for scholarship that is accessible to all those wishing to read broadly in the corpus of Rousseaus work. To this end, the translations seek to combine care and faithfulness to the original French text with readability in English. Although, as every translator knows, there are often passages where it is impossible to meet this criterion, readers of a thinker and writer of Rousseaus stature deserve texts that have not been deformed by the interpretive bias of the translators or editors.

Wherever possible, existing translations of high quality have been used, although in some cases the editors have felt that minor revisions were necessary to maintain the accuracy and consistency of the English versions. Where there was no English translation (or none of sufficient quality), a new translation has been prepared.

Each text is supplemented by editorial notes that clarify Rousseaus references and citations or passages otherwise not intelligible. Although these notes do not provide as much detail as is found in the critical apparatus of the Pliade edition of the Oeuvres compltes, the English-speaking reader should nevertheless have in hand the basis for a more careful and comprehensive understanding of Rousseau than has hitherto been possible.

The works contained in this volume are all concerned with practical political questions or history. Supplemented by the Letters Written from the Mountain and the Letter to dAlembert on the Theater (Collected Writings 9:131306 and 10:251352), they show the depth of Rousseaus concern with the practice as well as the theory of politics. The inclusion of Voltaires Rescript of the Emperor of China on the Occasion of the Plan for Perpetual Peace, particularly when this work is compared with Rousseaus , shows that the idea that Rousseau is an unrealistic utopian thinker is an old one.

We thank Glen Feder and Elizabeth Winkowski for their very helpful work on the .

Chronology of Works in Volume 11

1712

June 28: Jean-Jacques Rousseau born in Geneva.

1737

Rousseau studies history and chronological matters in Chambry. Probable date of composition of Universal Chronology.

1749

October: On the way to visit Diderot, who is imprisoned at Vincennes, Rousseau has the illumination that inspires him to write his Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts.

17491756

Period during which Rousseau wrote On Wealth.

17541756

Rousseau works on the History of the Valais and the writings of the Abb de Saint-Pierre.

1761

Publication of the Plan for Perpetual Peace.

Voltaire publishes the Rescript of the Emperor of China.

1764

Rousseau is approached by Buttafoco to write Plan for a Constitution for Corsica.

17711772

Rousseau works on the .

1778

July 2: Rousseau dies at Ermenonville.

Note on the Text

The works by Rousseau contained in this volume can be found in Oeuvres compltes (Paris: Bibliothque de la Pliade, 195995), Volumes III and V. Voltaires Rescript of the Emperor of China on the Occasion of the Plan for Perpetual Peace is from Mlanges (Paris: Bibliothque de la Pliade, 1961). We have also consulted Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Political Writings, edited by C. E. Vaughan (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), Volume II. There are many manuscript variants and changes made by Rousseau for most of these works. We have included only the major ones.

Some of the works included in this volume have been translated before. We have profited from the translations of The State of War and and the Constitutional Project for Corsica can be found in